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Charles Lyell
Charles Lyell
Charles Lyell
Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, FRS (14 November 1797 22 February
1875) was a Scottish geologist who popularised the revolutionary work Sir Charles Lyell, Bt
of James Hutton. He is best known as the author of Principles of
Geology, which presented uniformitarianismthe idea that the Earth
was shaped by the same scientific processes still in operation todayto
the broad general public. Principles of Geology also challenged theories
popularised by Georges Cuvier, which were the most accepted and
circulated ideas about geology in Europe at the time.[1]
During the 1840s, Lyell travelled to the United States and Canada, and
wrote two popular travel-and-geology books: Travels in North America
(1845) and A Second Visit to the United States (1849). After the Great
Chicago Fire, Lyell was one of the first to donate books to help found
the Chicago Public Library. In 1866, he was elected a foreign member
of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Charles Lyell at the British Association
Lyell's wife died in 1873, and two years later (in 1875) Lyell himself
meeting in Glasgow 1840. Painting by
died as he was revising the twelfth edition of Principles. He is buried in
Alexander Craig.
Westminster Abbey.[6][7] Lyell was knighted (Kt) in 1848,[8] and later,
in 1864, made a baronet (Bt),[9] which is an hereditary honour. He was
awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1858 and the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society in
1866. Mount Lyell, the highest peak in Yosemite National Park, is named after him; the crater Lyell on the
Moon and a crater on Mars were named in his honour; Mount Lyell in western Tasmania, Australia, located in a
profitable mining area, bears Lyell's name; and the Lyell Range in north-west Western Australia is named after
him as well. In Southwest Nelson in the South Island of New Zealand, the Lyell
Range, Lyell River and the gold mining town of Lyell (now only a camping site)
were all named after Lyell.[10] The jawless fish Cephalaspis lyelli, from the Old
Red Sandstone of southern Scotland, was named by Louis Agassiz in honour of
Lyell.[11]
Principles of Geology, Lyell's first book, was also his most famous,
most influential, and most important. First published in three volumes
in 183033, it established Lyell's credentials as an important geological
theorist and propounded the doctrine of uniformitarianism.[14] It was a
work of synthesis, backed by his own personal observations on his
travels.
The central argument in Principles was that the present is the key to the
past a concept of the Scottish Enlightenment which David Hume had
stated as "all inferences from experience suppose ... that the future will
resemble the past", and James Hutton had described when he wrote in
1788 that "from what has actually been, we have data for concluding
with regard to that which is to happen thereafter."[15] Geological
remains from the distant past can, and should, be explained by reference
to geological processes now in operation and thus directly observable.
Lyell's interpretation of geological change as the steady accumulation Lyell between 1865 and 1870
of minute changes over enormously long spans of time was a powerful
influence on the young Charles Darwin. Lyell asked Robert FitzRoy,
captain of HMS Beagle, to search for erratic boulders on the survey voyage of the Beagle, and just before it set
out FitzRoy gave Darwin Volume 1 of the first edition of Lyell's Principles. When the Beagle made its first stop
ashore at St Jago in the Cape Verde islands, Darwin found rock formations which seen "through Lyell's eyes"
gave him a revolutionary insight into the geological history of the island, an insight he applied throughout his
travels.
While in South America Darwin received Volume 2 which considered the ideas of Lamarck in some detail.
Lyell rejected Lamarck's idea of organic evolution, proposing instead "Centres of Creation" to explain diversity
and territory of species. However, as discussed below, many of his letters show he was fairly open to the idea of
evolution.[16] In geology Darwin was very much Lyell's disciple, and brought back observations and his own
original theorising, including ideas about the formation of atolls, which supported Lyell's uniformitarianism. On
the return of the Beagle (October 1836) Lyell invited Darwin to dinner and from then on they were close
friends. Although Darwin discussed evolutionary ideas with him from 1842, Lyell continued to reject evolution
in each of the first nine editions of the Principles. He encouraged Darwin to publish, and following the 1859
publication of On the Origin of Species, Lyell finally offered a tepid endorsement of evolution in the tenth
edition of Principles.
Elements of Geology began as the fourth volume of the third edition of
Principles: Lyell intended the book to act as a suitable field guide for
students of geology.[4] The systematic, factual description of geological
formations of different ages contained in Principles grew so unwieldy,
however, that Lyell split it off as the Elements in 1838. The book went
through six editions, eventually growing to two volumes and ceasing to
be the inexpensive, portable handbook that Lyell had originally
envisioned. Late in his career, therefore, Lyell produced a condensed
version titled Student's Elements of Geology that fulfilled the original The frontispiece fromElements of
purpose. Geology
Scientific contributions
Lyell's geological interests ranged from volcanoes and geological dynamics through stratigraphy,
palaeontology, and glaciology to topics that would now be classified as prehistoric archaeology and
paleoanthropology. He is best known, however, for his role in popularising the doctrine of uniformitarianism.
He played a critical role in advancing the study of loess.[18]
Uniformitarianism
From 1830 to 1833 his multi-volume Principles of Geology was published. The work's subtitle was "An
attempt to explain the former changes of the Earth's surface by reference to causes now in operation", and this
explains Lyell's impact on science. He drew his explanations from field studies conducted directly before he
went to work on the founding geology text.[5] He was, along with the earlier John Playfair, the major advocate
of James Hutton's idea of uniformitarianism, that the earth was shaped entirely by slow-moving forces still in
operation today, acting over a very long period of time. This was in contrast to catastrophism, an idea of abrupt
geological changes, which had been adapted in England to support belief in Noah's flood. Describing the
importance of uniformitarianism on contemporary geology, Lyell wrote,
Never was there a doctrine more calculated to foster indolence, and to blunt the keen edge of
curiosity, than this assumption of the discordance between the former and the existing causes of
change... The student was taught to despond from the first. Geology, it was affirmed, could never
arise to the rank of an exact science... [With catastrophism] we see the ancient spirit of speculation
revived, and a desire manifestly shown to cut, rather than patiently untie, the Gordian Knot.-Sir
Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology , 1854 edition, p.196; quoted by Stephen Jay Gould .[19]
Lyell saw himself as "the spiritual saviour of geology, freeing the science from the old dispensation of
Moses."[20] The two terms, uniformitarianism and catastrophism, were both coined by William Whewell;[21] in
1866 R. Grove suggested the simpler term continuity for Lyell's view, but the old terms persisted. In various
revised editions (12 in all, through 1872), Principles of Geology was the most influential geological work in the
middle of the 19th century, and did much to put geology on a modern footing. For his efforts he was knighted
in 1848, then made a baronet in 1864.
Geological Surveys
Lyell noted the "economic advantages" that geological surveys could provide, citing their felicity in mineral-
rich countries and provinces. Modern surveys, like the British Geological Survey (founded in 1835), and the
US Geological Survey (founded in 1879), map and exhibit the natural resources within the country. So, in
endorsing surveys, as well as advancing the study of geology, Lyell helped to forward the business of modern
extractive industries, such as the coal and oil industry.
Stratigraphy
Lyell's most important specific work was in the field of stratigraphy. From May 1828, until February 1829, he
travelled with Roderick Impey Murchison (17921871) to the south of France (Auvergne volcanic district) and
to Italy.[4][6][23] In these areas he concluded that the recent strata (rock layers) could be categorised according to
the number and proportion of marine shells encased within. Based on this he proposed dividing the Tertiary
period into three parts, which he named the Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene.
Glaciers
Evolution
Lyell first received a copy of one of Lamarck's books from Mantell in 1827, when he was on circuit. He
thanked Mantell in a letter which includes this enthusiastic passage:
"I devoured Lamark... his theories delighted me... I am glad that he has been courageous enough and
logical enough to admit that his argument, if pushed as far as it must go, if worth anything, would prove
that men may have come from the Ourang-Outang. But after all, what changes species may really
undergo!... That the Earth is quite as old as he supposes, has long been my creed..."[25]
In the second volume of the first edition of Principles Lyell explicitly rejected
the mechanism of Lamark on the transmutation of species, and was doubtful
whether species were mutable.[26] However, privately, in letters, he was more
open to the possibility of evolution:
This letter makes it clear that his equivocation on evolution was, at least at first,
a deliberate tactic. As a result of his letters and, no doubt, personal
Charles Darwin conversations, Huxley and Haeckel were convinced that, at the time he wrote
Principles, he believed new species had arisen by natural methods. Both
Whewell and Sedgwick wrote worried letters to him about this.[28]
During the Beagle survey expedition from 1831 to 1836, Darwin read Lyell's Principles as they were published,
and made geological findings supporting Lyell's ideas. On return, he became a close personal friend, and Lyell
was one of the first scientists to support On the Origin of Species, though he did not subscribe to all its
contents. Lyell was also a friend of Darwin's closest colleagues, Hooker and Huxley, but unlike them he
struggled to square his religious beliefs with evolution. This inner struggle has been much commented on. He
had particular difficulty in believing in natural selection as the main motive force in evolution.[29][30][31]
Although Lyell did not publicly accept evolution (descent with modification) at
the time of writing the Principles,[32] after the DarwinWallace papers and the
Origin Lyell wrote in his notebook:
3 May 1860: "Mr. Darwin has written a work which will constitute an era
in geology & natural history to show that... the descendants of common
parents may become in the course of ages so unlike each other as to be
entitled to rank as a distinct species, from each other or from some of
their progenitors".[33]
Quite strong remarks: no doubt Darwin resented Lyell's repeated suggestion that he owed a lot to Lamarck,
whom he (Darwin) had always specifically rejected. Darwin's daughter Henrietta (Etty) wrote to her father: "Is
it fair that Lyell always calls your theory a modification of Lamarck's?" [36][37]
In other respects Antiquity was a success. It sold well, and it "shattered the tacit agreement that mankind should
be the sole preserve of theologians and historians".[38] But when Lyell wrote that it remained a profound
mystery how the huge gulf between man and beast could be bridged, Darwin wrote "Oh!" in the margin of his
copy.[17]
Legacy
Places named after Lyell:
Bibliography
Principles of Geology
Lyell, Charles (1830). Principles of geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the
Earth's surface, by reference to causes now in operation. vol. 1. London: John Murray.
Lyell, Charles (1832). Principles of geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the
Earth's surface, by reference to causes now in operation. vol. 2. London: John Murray.
Lyell, Charles (1833). Principles of geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the
Earth's surface, by reference to causes now in operation. vol. 3. London: John Murray.
Details of publication
Principles of Geology 1st edition, 1st vol. Jan. 1830 (John Murray, London).
Principles of Geology 1st edition, 2nd vol. Jan. 1832
Principles of Geology 1st edition, 3rd vol. May 1833
Principles of Geology 2nd edition, 1st vol. 1832
Principles of Geology 2nd edition, 2nd vol. Jan. 1833
Principles of Geology 3rd edition, 4 vols. May 1834
Principles of Geology 4th edition, 4 vols. June 1835
Principles of Geology 5th edition, 4 vols. March 1837
Principles of Geology 6th edition, 3 vols. June 1840
Principles of Geology 7th edition, 1 vol. Feb. 1847
Principles of Geology 8th edition, 1 vol. May 1850
Principles of Geology 9th edition, 1 vol. June 1853
Principles of Geology 10th edition, 186668
Principles of Geology 11th edition, 2 vols. 1872
Principles of Geology 12th edition, 2 vols. 1875 (published posthumously)
Elements of Geology
Elements of Geology 1 vol. 1st edition, July 1838 (John Murray, London)
Elements of Geology 2 vols. 2nd edition, July 1841
Elements of Geology (Manual of Elementary Geology) 1 vol. 3rd edition, Jan. 1851
Elements of Geology (Manual of Elementary Geology) 1 vol. 4th edition, Jan. 1852
Elements of Geology (Manual of Elementary Geology) 1 vol. 5th edition, 1855
Elements of Geology 6th edition, 1865
Elements of Geology, The Student's Series, 1871
Antiquity of Man
Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man. 1 vol. 1st edition, Feb. 1863 (John Murray, London)
Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man 1 vol. 2nd edition, April 1863
Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man 1 vol. 3rd edition, Nov. 1863
Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man 1 vol. 4th edition, May 1873
Lyell, Katharine Murray, ed. (1881). Life, Letters, and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell. 1. London: John
Murray.[40]
Lyell, Katharine Murray, ed. (1881). Life, Letters, and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell. 2. London: John
Murray.[40]
See also
Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle, a book by Stephen Jay Gould that reassesses Lyell's work
Notes
1. Cannon, Walter F. "The impact of uniformitarianism: two letters from John Herschel to Charles Lyell,
18361837." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (1961): 301314.
2. Rudwick, Martin. 2014. Earth's Deep History. University of Chicago Press.
3. Google maps, including terrain and satellite.
4. Bailey, Edward 1962. Charles Lyell. Nelson, London.
5. Wilson 1973.
6. MaComber 1997.
7. Westminster Abbey.
8. "No. 20905" (https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/20905/page/3692). The London Gazette. 13
October 1848. p. 3692.
9. "No. 22878" (https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/22878/page/3665). The London Gazette. 22
July 1864. p. 3665.
10. "Lyell" (http://www.theprow.org.nz/yourstory/lyell/#.VcKWS_mqqkp). theprow.org.nz. Retrieved
20 August 2017.
11. "Cephalaspis lyelli" (http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/species-of-the-day/evolution/cephalaspis-lyell
i/index.html). The Natural History Museum. 2013. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
12. Darwin, F. (1887). Life and letters of Charles Darwin. II. London. p. 90.
13. Darwin, F; Seward, A.C. (1903). More letters of Charles Darwin. II. London. p. 232.
14. Thanukos 2012.
15. Mathieson, =Elizabeth Lincoln (13 May 2002). "The Present is the Key to the Past is the Key to the
Future" (http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2002CD/finalprogram/abstract_34786.htm). The Geological Society
of America. Retrieved 28 September 2010.
16. Judd gives a number of examples: Judd J.W. 1910. The coming of evolution. Cambridge.
17. W.F., Bynum (1984). "Charles Lyell's Antiquity of Man and its critics". J. Hist Biol. 17 (2): 153187.
JSTOR 4330890 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/4330890). doi:10.1007/BF00143731 (https://doi.org/10.10
07%2FBF00143731).
18. Smalley, I. J., Gaudenyi, T., Jovanovic, M. 2014. Charles Lyell and the loess deposits of the Rhine valley.
Quaternary International 372, 45-50. doi.10.1016/j.quaint.2014.08.047
19. Galilei, Galileo (2001). Stephen Jay Gould, ed. Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems. New York:
Modern Science Library. pp. ixx.
20. Porter 1976, p. 91.
21. Whewell, William 1837. History of the Inductive Sciences, vol. IV of the Historical and Philosophical
Works of William Whewell. Chapter VIII The two antagonistic doctrines of geology. [reprint of 3rd
edition of 1857, publ. Cass 1967].
22. Adams, Frank D. The Birth and Development of the Geological Sciences. Dover Publications, Inc., 1938.
23. Stafford, Robert A. Scientist of Empire. Cambridge, UK. Cambridge University Press, 1989.
24. Lyell, Charles (1881). "XXIV". Life, Letters and Journals of Sir Charles Lyell (https://archive.org/strea
m/lifelettersandj01lyelgoog#page/n130/mode/2up). John Murray. p. 110. "
You hint at icebergs and northern waves. The former has no doubt had its influence, and when icebergs
turn over, or fall to pieces, huge waves are caused not merely from the north. But it has always seemed to
me that much more influence ought to be attributed to simple denudation where beds of loose sand,
gravel, or mud were upheaved, and sometimes alternately depressed and upraised in an open sea. The
exposure of such destructible materials must have led to the confusion you allude to, but much less so
where the beds were protected in fiords, &c. The broken fossils found in these strata would agree with
my denudation hypothesis, which I think strengthened by the frequent regular re-stratification of the beds
containing the deep and shallow water species."
25. Lyell K. 1881. The life and letters of Sir Charles Lyell. 2 vols, London. vol. 1 p. 168
26. Lyell C. 183033. The principles of geology. Murray, London. vol. 2, Chapter 2.
27. Lyell to William Whewell, 7 March 1837. In Lyell K. 1881. The life and letters of Sir Charles Lyell. 2
vols, London. vol. 2 p. 5
28. Judd J.W. 1910. The coming of evolution. Cambridge. Chapter 8, pp. 8386.
29. Bowler P.J. 2003. Evolution: the history of an idea (https://books.google.com/books?id=gJXmS49Q7r0C
&pg=PA129). 3rd ed, University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23693-9 pp. 129134, 149150, 215
30. Mayr E. 1982. The growth of biological thought (https://books.google.com/books?id=pHThtE2R0UQC&
pg=PA375). Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-36446-5 (esp pp. 375381, 404408).
31. M., Bartholomew (1973). "Lyell and evolution: an account of Lyell's response to the prospect of an
evolutionary ancestry for man". Brit J Hist Sci. 6 (3): 261303. JSTOR 4025445 (https://www.jstor.org/st
able/4025445). PMID 11615533 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11615533).
doi:10.1017/S0007087400016265 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS0007087400016265).
32. Lyell C. 183033. The principles of geology. Murray, London. vol. 2, pp. 2021.
33. Wilson, Leonard G. (ed) 1970. Sir Charles Lyell's scientific journals on the species question. Yale
University Press. p. 407
34. Desmond A. 1982. Archetypes and Ancestors: palaeontology in Victorian London Blond & Briggs,
London. page 179: "Even Charles Lyell agreed... that 'natural selection was a force quite subordinate to
that variety-making or creative power to which all the wonders of the organic world must be referred.' "
35. Burkhardt F. and Smith S. 1982present. The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Cambridge, vol. 11,
pp. 173, 181.
36. Burkhardt F. and Smith S. 1982present. The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Cambridge, vol. 11, p.
223.
37. Cape, ISBN 1-84413-314-1 Browne, E. Janet 2002. Charles Darwin: the power of place. Volume 2 of a
biography. Cape, London. page 219
38. Browne, E. Janet 2002. Charles Darwin: the power of place. Volume 2 of a biography. Cape, London. p.
218
39. "Review of A Second Visit to the United States of North America, in the Years 1845-6 by Sir Charles
Lyell" (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b661324;view=1up;seq=195). The Quarterly Review.
85: 183224. June 1849.
40. "Review of Life, Letters, and Journals by Sir Charles Lyell, Bart. ed. by his Sister-in-Law, Mrs. Lyell" (h
ttps://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044092526755;view=1up;seq=108). The Quarterly Review.
153: 96131. January 1882.
References
MaComber, Richard W. (1997). "Lyell, Sir Charles, Baronet". The New Encyclopdia Britannica.
Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc.
Wilson, Leonard G. (1973). "Charles Lyell". In Gillispie, Charles Coulston. Dictionary of Scientific
Biography. VIII. Pennsylvania: Charles Scribner's Sons.
"Charles Lyell Westminster Abbey". Retrieved 6 June 2009.
Thanukos, Anna (2012). "Uniformitarianism: Charles Lyell". University of California Museum of
Paleontology. Retrieved 23 July 2012.
Porter, Roy S. (July 1976). "Charles Lyell and the Principles of the History of Geology". The British
Journal for the History of Science. 32 (2): 91103. JSTOR 4025798. doi:10.1017/s0007087400014692.
Taub, Liba (1993). "Evolutionary Ideas and "Empirical" Methods: The Analogy Between Language and
Species in the Works of Lyell and Schleicher". British Journal for the History of Science. 26: 171193.
doi:10.1017/s0007087400030740.
Hestmark, Geir (2012). "The meaning of 'metamorphic' Charles & Mary Lyell in Norway, 1837".
Norwegian Journal of Geology. 91: 247275.
Image source
Portraits of Honorary Members of the Ipswich Museum (Portfolio of 60 lithographs by T.H. Maguire)
(George Ransome, Ipswich 18461852)
External links
Media related to Charles Lyell at Wikimedia Commons
Works written by or about Charles Lyell at Wikisource
Quotations related to Charles Lyell at Wikiquote
Works by Charles Lyell at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Charles Lyell at Internet Archive
Principles of Geology 1st edition at ESP.
Principles of Geology (7th edition, 1847) from Linda Hall Library
Baronet
New creation (of Kinnordy) Extinct
18641875